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Guest opinion: Protect the 'Colorado brand'

By Sen. Matt Jones

Posted:
03/06/2013 01:00:00 AM MST

We live in an extraordinary place with an exceptional quality of life. It is a privilege to be able to drive home everyday looking at the majestic vista of our Front Range. We are fortunate to have world class universities and federal labs that have chosen to make Colorado, and Boulder County home. We are the beneficiaries of a well-educated, well-trained workforce and numerous great entrepreneurs and emerging industries that continue to bring good jobs to Colorado. We are lucky to have hiking trails or fishing streams nearby. We have worked hard to keep our air and water clean. And we pride ourselves on being one of the healthiest, most active states in the country.

This is the Colorado Brand.

Tremendous work has gone into building and maintaining our Colorado way of life. Businesses, educational institutions, local organizations, communities, and the state and local government have long worked to build, maintain, and advance our Colorado Brand. Every year the Colorado legislature works to support good jobs, keep our food, air and water clean and maintain the excellent quality of life we enjoy. For instance, this year I am sponsoring legislation to give small businesses a way to finance energy conservation and renewable energy improvements.

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It is critical for us to protect the Colorado Brand we have worked so hard to create, in order to attract the great paying jobs that support so many main street businesses. So that is the lens we should view new oil and gas development in our state. While acknowledging the need to produce domestic energy sources, we must insist on knowing the impacts of oil and gas development on our health, our air and water quality, and on jobs and the environment.

At the beginning of the year the setback for oil and gas rigs from homes was only 350 feet. That's why one of my goals this legislative session is to increase safeguards and require more accountability from the oil and gas industry to ensure that their operations are as safe as possible and not compromising our health. Citizen pressure combined with legislative action has led to improvements. Unfortunately, the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission recently had the chance to do more, but they did not provide strong protections. Their new 500-foot setbacks rule is better, but is still far too close and includes a number of exceptions allowing oil and gas companies to place fracking operations even closer than 350 feet from your home. We can do better, and protecting our Colorado Brand demands it.

Some would argue that restricting activity and enforcing transparency on the oil and gas industry will compromise Colorado jobs. That is simply not the case. The same was said in 2007 when the oil and gas rules were strengthened. Since those regulations were approved, oil production has gone up by 82 percent and gas 25 percent. Even cities in the Texas "gas patch" have 1,000-foot setbacks. Asking the oil and gas industry to prove that they are not making our water unsafe to drink, or our air unsafe to breathe, is not unreasonable. Asking the oil and gas industry not to jeopardize our health when it comes to setbacks on drilling and fracking farther away from homes is not unreasonable. In fact, it is protecting our Colorado Brand. As your Senator, I will not stop working until we've reached that goal.

There is mounting evidence to show that both our air and water quality are at stake should drilling and fracking by the oil and gas industry remain unchecked. Parents and residents should not have to worry whether their child has safe drinking water. And they shouldn't have the responsibility, or bear the expense of proving the oil and gas industry is operating safely.

Colorado should continue to be an energy leader, but that also means being a leader in protecting the quality of life that attracts new businesses -- especially the clean energy brand that we have created in Boulder County. I am committed to working on legislation that will help attract clean energy jobs to our great state and hold the oil and gas industry accountable for their operations.

My goal is to protect our Colorado Brand, which attracts good jobs, while promoting a quality of life that ensures healthy communities.

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